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Quentin Miller
LIT 335- Gender and Sexuality in Victorian Literature
Prof. David Agruss
December 1, 2013
Reversals of Occidental Authority and Oriental Weakness in Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula chronicles the horrifying experiences of a
group of friends and colleagues through a series of journals, letters, and newspaper
articles as they are stalked and made prey by Transylvania’s Count Dracula. Through
Dracula’s apportioned shifting between the feminized Orient and its opposing,
masculinzed Occident, and similarly, his travels between Transylvania and England,
stimulates the stress and fear had by Stoker’s characters throughout the novel’s dramatic
plot. This fear and anxiety produced by the monster Dracula’s hyper-sexualized
androgyny coexists with the West’s fear of the blurring of Oriental thought and tradition
permeating into 19th century England; for, the continual development of Dracula’s
character represents the Orientalist theory that “the Orient is an idea that has a history and
a tradition of thought, imagery, and vocabulary that have given it reality and presence in
and for the West. The two geographical entities thus support and to an extent reflect each
other” (Said 5). Dracula’s seamless drifting between Occident and Orient, alongside his
characteristic ability to employ both masculine and feminine qualities as they existed in
the normative 19th century stereotype, necessarily reflects an Occidental anxiety of the
Orient’s permeation into Western culture, while reversing the Occident’s hegemonic
domination over Oriental thought and tradition.
When attempting to understand the source of Dracula’s dominating powers, when
viewed through the lens of Said’s Orientalist theory, “the relationship between Occident
and Orient is a relationship of power, of domination, of varying degrees of complex
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hegemony” (Said 5). That said Transylvania, as viewed through England’s Western
imagination, becomes Orientalized. In Jonathan Harker’s British mind, Transylvania as
the Orient is portrayed when at the commencement of the novel, Harker, as he travels to
Transylvania to meet the nobleman Dracula, romanticizes the country’s people as “very
picturesque,” as if “they would be set down at once as some old Oriental band of
brigands,” while describing the landscape as “full of beauty of every kind” (Stoker 11).
Harker’s hitherto unawareness of the lurking monstrosity within this fantastical
countryside connotes the Occident’s unconscious, slumbered fear of Oriental domination,
which stems from an Occidental ideal created and imagined as “Orient;” insofar as Said
delineates,
“the imaginative examinations of things Oriental was based more or less
exclusively upon a sovereign Western consciousness out of whose unchallenged
centrality an Oriental world emerged, first according to general ideas about who
or what was an Oriental, then according to a detailed logic governed not simply
by empirical reality but by a battery of desires, repressions, investments, and
projections.” (Said 8)
Now, Dracula’s hailing from this land suggest his sheer Oriental subjectivity as
the Oriental “other” to the Occident’s “self.” Although, reversing this typified hegemonic
relationship, Dracula holds a strange and opposing power over Haker’s supposed
masculine, Occidental mind, producing much fear and anxiety in Harker, who lacked
“heart to describe [the castle’s] beauty,” for, in his mind, “The castle is a veritable prison,
and I am a prisoner” (Stoker 31-32). Harker’s captivity and subjugation under the Counts
control contributes to Dracula’s weakening of the Western imagination. In addition,
Dracula’s paradoxical embodiment of both Orient and Occident is made aware to
Stoker’s audience in both Harker’s realization that Dracula “know[s] and speak[s]
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English thoroughly,” and Dracula’s recognition that “Transylvania is not England. Our
ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things” (Stoker 26-27).
Opposite the typical hegemony displayed by England over its colonized lands, Dracula,
here, exemplifies both a masculinized Oriental power, and, through his understanding and
awareness of England’s language and customs, and his intellectual dominion over
England, weakens and thus feminizes the Occident.
In that, Said’s theory of the Orient’s weakness and separation from Occident’s
sheer power supports Dracula’s reversal of power as Said describes Orientalism as “a
collective notion identifying ‘us’ Europeans as against all ‘those’ non-Europeans, and
indeed it can be argued that the major component in European culture is precisely what
made that culture hegemonic both in and outside Europe: the idea of European identity as
a superior one in comparison with all the non-European peoples and cultures” (Said 7).
Even further, and despite his noble position in Orienatlized Transylvania, Dracula
exhibits an Occidental authority in his extensive and thorough knowledge of England, “In
the library I found, to my great delight, a vast number of English books, whole shelves
full of them, and bound volumes of magazines and newspapers, […] The books were of
the most varied kind—history, geography, politics, political economy, botany, geology,
law—all relating to England and English life and customs and manners” (Stoker 25). The
Count’s illustrious English accent, indistinguishable from that of the average
Englishman’s, alongside his absorption of English “history, geography,” and “politics”
interestingly and reversely contrasts Said’s Orientalism; for, Orientalism is,
“a distribution of geopolitical awareness into aesthetic, scholarly, economic,
sociological, historical, and philological texts, […] it is an elaboration not only of
basic geographical distinction but also of a whole series of ‘interests’ which, by
such means of scholarly discovery, […] not only creates, but also maintains; it is,
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rather than expresses, a certain will of intention to understand, in some cases,
control, manipulate, even to incorporate, what is manifestly different (or
alternative and novel) world.” (Said 12)
Thusly, in accordance with Said’s examination of Orientalism’s inception in the Western
imagination, Dracula contains the capacity to hold dominion over Occidental Europe; it’s
people, language, and even politics and geography, therefore establishing, and
paradoxically enforcing, Dracula’s “Occidentalism” and producing fear and anxiety in
Stoker’s characters, and likely his audience, throughout the novel.
Extensive knowledge of the Orient, in Dracula’s case the Occident, reflects the
ascertaining of power over it’s populous. The Western mind’s fascination and
romaniticization of the Orient acts as an inciting distraction from Dracula’s wielding and
imaginative Oriental authority. Mina Harker, in her journal entry, connotes the secrecy in
their plan of acting against the Oriental power that Dracula contains, “Our toil must be in
silence, and our efforts all in secret; for in this enlightened age, when men believe not
even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength” (Stoker
279). Mina’s awareness of Dracula’s “greatest strength” produced by the “doubting of
wise men” in an “enlightened age,” and that their plan of attack must “be in silence”
interestingly reverses, albeit supports, Said’s idea that, “without examining Orientalism
as a discourse one cannot possibly understand the enormously systematic discipline by
which European culture was able to manage—and even produce—the Orient politically,
sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically and imaginatively during the postEnlightenment period;” (Said 3) for, Dracula’s apportioned appearances and ability to
“appear at will when, and where, and in any of the forms that are to him; he can, within
his range, direct the elements: the storm, the fog, the thunder,” (Stoker 209) allows him to
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infest the Occidental “discourses” existing in the minds, thoughts, and actions of
“European culture.” Dracula’s constant reversal’s of Orientalism persists in the minds of
Stoker’s characters through Dr. Seward’s acknowledgment that in order to defeat
Dracula’s Occidental stronghold, they must first extensively study and understand the
derivation of Dracula’s looming authority, “because in the struggle which we have before
us to rid the earth of this terrible monster we must first have all the knowledge and all the
help which we can get” (Stoker 197). For, when applying Said’s theory, Dracula
continually reverses the structures of Orientalism; “for dealing with the Orient—dealing
with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching
it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating,
restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” (Said 3). Dracula further exhibits and
foreshadows his authority upon the Occidental population when he explains to Harker
that the English population’s knowledge of his existence in England won’t necessarily
allow them the ability to forcibly ascribe to him Oriental subjugation, and also fail in
their attempts to Orientalize him, “Well I know that, did I move and speak in your
London, none there are who would not know me for a stranger […] I am content if I am
like the rest, so that no man stops if he see me, or pause in his speaking if he hear my
words, to say, ‘Ha, ha! a stranger!’ I have been so long master that I would be master
still—or at least that none other should be master of me” (Stoker 26). Dracula’s ability to
hide amongst the English population while still having mastery over them contributes to
his fearful, elusive Occidental authority, and disallowing England’s forceful attempts to
Orientalize him.
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Dracula’s most frightening appearances and alluring qualities surely daunted
Stoker’s 19th century, British audience; insofar as “the relationship between Occident and
Orient is a relationship of power,” (Said 5) similarly, Dracula’s feminine actions
combined with his masculine descriptions allures and ultimately conquers Harker and his
colleagues’ and friends’ minds, which adds to the Count’s ambiguous shifting between
weakened and feminized Orient and masculinized dominating Occident. In Harker’s first
introduction to the appearance of the Count, he describes, “His face [as] a strong—a very
strong—aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with
lofty domed forehead […] The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache,
was fixed and rather cruel looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded
over the lips” (23). While this examination in Harker’s mind would surely connote his
masculine features, thus establishing his stereotypical Occidental masculinity, Dracula,
much like his ceaseless reversing of power structures, is also seen as highly feminine
when he attacks Mina Harker, “forcing her face down in his bosom,” which “had a
terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kittens nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to
drink” (Stoker 247). Here, the description of Dracula holding Mina’s “face do his bosom”
is very feminine in nature, for, the analogy given by Dr. Seward, and Mina’s resemblance
of “a child” being “compelled to drink milk” is eerily similar to a woman’s giving milk
to it’s child.
When reading Stoker’s novel, one is continually drawn towards the Count’s
terrorizing and elusive influence over his English victims when throughout the novel
Dracula’s monstrous, bloodsucking actions and shape shifting abilities permeate the
fearful English imagination, and continually reverses and re-reverses Occidental power
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and Oriental weakness. Similarly, Dracula’s androgyny and luring feminine qualities
coupled with a masculine physique and strength parallels the 19th fears of becoming
subjected to Oriental colonization and domination. In Stoker’s 1897 British audience’s
minds, Dracula’s intimidation stems from his elusive translucence and exhibitions of
Occidental authority and Oriental enticement, which is in constant disarray and
ceaselessly shifts back and forth. Thus, through a close analysis and understanding of
Said’s Orientalism set alongside Stoker’s depiction of the Count, reverses the typical
relationship of power between Orient and Occident. Stoker, insofar as his awareness of
the imperialistic dominion England has over it’s colonies, sought to draw attention to
Dracula’s elusive appearance and converse Occidental attributes and sexual androgyny to
add to his terrorizing depiction of his invasion of England, and induce fear and anxiety in
his 19th century British audience.
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Works Cited
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 1997. Print.
Said, Edward W. "Introduction." Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1978. 1-28. Print.